


minor things

by boltlightning



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Injury Recovery, Missing Scene, Vignette, it's cloud braiding aerith's hair i don't know what else you could want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24701383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltlightning/pseuds/boltlightning
Summary: “Here.” Promptly, Cloud sits next to her and picks up the ribbon left on the seat. “Let me.”
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife
Comments: 5
Kudos: 120
Collections: Umbrella & Nailbat | Recs





	minor things

Magic seals the slashes in her shoulder shut. It does not fully remove the necessary pains of healing.

No one could have expected Don Corneo would sick a  _ dragon _ on them. Aerith had not taken the brunt of the monster’s fury, but still walked away with burning reminders of this battle in the mountains of Wutai. The dragon’s claws had dug into her shoulder and down her arm before Barret had fired a volley of bullets directly into its face.

Aerith tests the rotation of her shoulder gingerly in the darkness of the bathhouse. The muscle beneath her new scars pull with the skin, painful and raw. With care, the pain will fade in a few days. For now, she can barely lift her arm; even pushing her wet hair over her shoulder draws a hiss of pain.

She is grateful for the low candlelight of Wutai’s inn — she can at least keep her dignity while she dresses in the dark.

By the time Aerith returns to their rooms that evening, most of the party is gone. Nanaki, curled into a ball by a dimming hearth in the boys’ room, informs her without opening his eye that Cid and Tifa didn’t want to sit still. They had set out to explore the city of Wutai they had no time to see earlier, and the rest of the party had followed. They deserved some time off; Aerith does not begrudge them. She moves to the lobby of the inn, by a larger fireplace, and sits on the lone loveseat.

She begins to try and tie her hair back so it will stay out of her way. It is frustrating work. Her fingers are tense, and her hands still tremble from the shock of the battle — the braids that result from her attempts are loose and uneven. She gives up, and absently combs through her hair with her good hand while thinking of a short-term solution.

She is weighing her options when Cloud enters the room, silent as a cat. He pauses next to her and rests a hand on the back of the sofa; his eyes flicker to her shoulder, where he knows the new scars reside.

“You good?” he asks quietly.

“I’m  _ great _ ,” she answers with a dry smile. “Just struggling to wrangle my own hair.”

Cloud blinks and considers the situation for a moment, his expression comically serious. He says at length, “Here.” Promptly, he sits next to her and picks up the ribbon left on the seat. “Let me.”

Aerith does not pretend to hide her delight; she beams and turns around, pushing her hair in a curtain back over her shoulder. As she siddles closer to him, she hears Cloud let out a tiny, resigned, amused sigh. He removes his gauntlet and gloves before he reaches for her hair.

Cloud’s touch is featherlight and hesitant at first. He gently pulls through the small knots in her wavy hair, still damp from the bath. The two are silent, but not uneasy. His hands work deftly as he settles into a rhythm, sifting the strands of hair into even parts before he begins to braid.

There are few times when Aerith has ever been as at ease as she is now. Someone she trusts sits at her back. He brushes her hair in a soothing, gentle cadence because she is wounded and cannot do it herself. It is an intimate setting, alone in a city unfamiliar to them, but she feels so entirely  _ safe _ .

As Cloud works, she finds herself breaking out of her trance to say, “So, SOLDIER boy.”

“Yes, local florist?” he answers, droll as ever.

“Where’d a tough guy like you learn to braid?” she asks, her voice lilted with teasing. 

She is expecting some answer about how they used to braid their own rope in SOLDIER for survival, or some other way of making him sound cool and badass as Cloud is wont to do. Instead, his hands pause while he shrugs. “I grew up in a rural village. You saw it,” he says. “We wove baskets sometimes. Hard to forget that.”

“You’re a surprising guy, Cloud,” she says honestly. At his snort, she insists, “Really! I feel like there’s always something new with you.”

“To be fair,” he objects, “this is an old thing that only happened to come up now.”

“But it’s new to me!”

“Ask a different question,” he says instead. His voice has returned to its flat, disinterested tone, but he is working slower now. Perhaps he is taking time to make sure the braid is secure; perhaps he is prolonging their conversation. Either way, Aerith is more than happy for the distraction from her pain. 

They speak of minor things, things without consequence, trivialities they rarely come across in their quest to save the world. For a second, in this pocket of peace, they don’t have to be SOLDIER and Cetra; they are Cloud and Aerith. And Aerith breathes easier because of it.

Cloud ties the end of her hair with her spare ribbon. She touches it instinctively with her good hand, and shifts on the loveseat so she can face him.

The plait is more complicated than her simple, lazy one. Aerith had left the ribbon usually at the back of her head, the one with the materia from her mother, in her room. In its absence he has given her a more tight, complicated plait, securing the hair from the base of her skull down to its tips. It seems she can’t stop smiling, and Cloud purposefully points his gaze towards the fireplace.

“Like I said, Cloud,” she says quietly, “you’re full of surprises. Thank you.”

“Yeah. No prob.” He looks across the room towards the clock and frowns. “It’s late...don’t you have to undo it to sleep?”

“Well,” she drawls, “I guess you’ll just have to braid it tomorrow, too.”

He glances at her sideways, accusation in his eyes...but there is something softer there, a shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his lip. Aerith feels a surge of victory. 

“If that’s what you want,” is the answer Cloud gives her. She cannot help but note that it is not a no.


End file.
